‘Growing up girl’ and ‘Being boy’ – building and challenging gendered social realities over time through sibling relationships Rosalind Edwards University of Southampton

Dominant approach to sibling relationships Gender as cause: Number and gender balance of siblings produces adjustment, sexuality, achievement Parents’ treatment, expectations and investment of/in their children is based on their gender Gender produces daughter/son involvement in care and communication Gender as outcome: Parents’ attitudes, emphases and treatment produce masculine and feminine attitudes and behaviour in their children

Interpretive relational approach: Gendered identities as re/constructed in social interactions Masculinity and femininity as dynamic practices in relation to each other Some identities more legitimised than others Identities built incrementally, explicit and implicit

‘Your Space! Siblings & Friends’ project aims:  To document the meanings, experiences and flows of children’s lateral relationships over time.  To explore how such prescribed (sibling) and chosen (friendship) relationships relate to young people’s sense of self as their individual and family biographies unfold. Tracking the lives of 51 young people (born between 1989/1996) across England, Scotland and Wales:  Wave one ~ sample age 7-13, drawn from 3 previous studies conducted 2002/05  Wave two ~ age 11-17, conducted 2007  Wave three ~ age 13-19, conducted 2009

CORA Age 13: He’s just immature. He doesn’t act like older … He can never say anything sensible …I wish he’d go out more and act more like a teenager … Cos I’ve sort of grown up more faster than he is. He doesn’t do anything basically. And he’s just basically hanging around with people younger than him. Cos you know he never really asks if he can go up to [town] …. Sad act.

CORA Age 13: He’s just immature. He doesn’t act like older … He can never say anything sensible …I wish he’d go out more and act more like a teenager … Cos I’ve sort of grown up more faster than he is. He doesn’t do anything basically. And he’s just basically hanging around with people younger than him. Cos you know he never really asks if he can go up to [town] …. Sad act. Age 17: [We started getting on] probably when I was 15 or 16, cos a lot of our friends became friends with his friends. The group we go about with, it’s all mixed ages … We’ve both got a lot of friends … There’s nothing really I don’t like about having a brother, it’s fine … I kind of class him as a friend as well.

MEGAN AND ANN age 11 and 8 Ann:[Megan] doesn’t really like to be the Princess. Megan:I’m just not that kind of girl. I don’t really like being the Princess in the top rank, I just like things the way they are. I mean, if I was a Princess I’d never be able to walk … Ann:Megan’s a bit fatter, Megan’s a bit chubbier [than me] Megan:You’re chubby, you’re chubby. Ann:Megan’s not a dressy skirt person. She wants to but first she’s got to get rid of her chubby body …

MEGAN age 15 At the moment I’ve got a reputation of being bisexual, which is a bit weird. I haven’t gone out with anyone yet. Someone asked whether I liked boys and I said ‘I don’t know’, and someone asked whether I liked girls and I said ‘Quite honestly I don’t know’ because I hadn’t done anything either way. So then everyone said that I was a bisexual and it’s gone round the school.

MARSHALL age 12 Cos me and my brother don’t get along that much … It’s like me and my sister get along well. I love my sister. I mean I do love my brother obviously, it’s just the fact that I love my sister more. Because my brother always hits me. Anything really [can make it happen]. He mostly does it for fun. It made me feel lonely before my sister was there, but now she is here … When she’s being sick I get her a tea-towel, make her bottles, all that sort of thing.

MARSHALL age 16 On his older brother: [We are quite similar] personality-wise, yeah … If we don’t like someone we’ll tell them … We just talk the same, sound the same and we act the same … [We’ve] grown up together [so it’s] natural … I just copied him, do you know what I mean, you just do when you’re a kid, you copy your older brother.

MARSHALL age 16 On his older brother: [We are quite similar] personality-wise, yeah … If we don’t like someone we’ll tell them … We just talk the same, sound the same and we act the same … [We’ve] grown up together [so it’s] natural … I just copied him, do you know what I mean, you just do when you’re a kid, you copy your older brother. On his young sister: When she’s not in one of her moods yeah, we’re fine. But normally she’s just ‘mum, mum, mum’. Clingy … She’s like me, she’s got a short fuse. You’ve only got to look at her and stare at her and try and wind her up and she’ll bite. She’ll latch on and she’ll scream and whinge and whatever … Every time I put my music on, she’ll dance.

Final messages A common place picture of siblings actively constructing, negotiating and contesting gendered identities Relational nature of changes and continuities in masculinity and femininity in everyday interactions over time